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How Much Do Golf Lessons Cost? – 7 Factors That Affect Price

golf lessons
golf lessons

Golf lessons can be an amazing investment of time and money that can truly take your game to the next level.

However, you need to make sure you are getting lessons from a golf instructor who is adequate for you. The better the instructor and his equipment, the more expensive the lessons will tend to be.

Therefore, you may wonder, how much do golf lessons cost? In this article, we will tell you about all the factors that influence the price of golf lessons and give you statistics behind golf lesson prices.

How Much Do Golf Lessons Cost?

On average, golf lessons cost between 30$ and 125$ per hour, depending on various factors such as instructor experience & prestige, geographical location, bundle discounts, whether you choose individual or group coaching, the coaching equipment used and the opulence of the golf facility used for training.

You can typically expect to pay between 30$ and 125$ for a lesson that lasts 30 minutes to 1 hour.

There are many factors that affect the price of a golf lesson. You can find out what these factors are by reading the next section of this article, down below.

7 Factors That Affect Golf Lesson Price

How can you determine how much golf lessons cost? Down below is a list of 7 factors that influence how much golf lessons cost.

Length of Golf Lesson

Golf lessons typically last from 30 minutes to 1 hour. Examples of common golf lesson lengths are 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and 1 hour.

It should be obvious that the longer a lesson is, the higher the price of the lesson will be.

Common prices for different golf lesson lengths are listed in the chart down below:

Lesson LengthPrice
30 minutes40$
45 minutes50$
1 hour60$
Common prices of golf lessons VS Lesson length

However, the other pricing factors in this list can completely override these common prices relative to lesson length, causing higher or lower prices. Since we are talking about golf, it will more likely be a higher price rather than lower.

Group VS Private Lessons

Golf lessons come in two types: group lessons, or private lessons.

Typically, group lessons are less expensive than private lessons because the instructor’s attention is divided across many people. Furthermore, group lessons will focus more on giving you general information than on giving you personalized improvements to your game.

In private, one-on-one lessons, the golf instructor’s attention should be fully focused on you and analyzing your technique. If your instructor knows what they are doing, they should be able to give you many pointers quickly to instantly improve your technique, your swing path, putting, and more.

You can expect private lessons to be about 50% to 100% more expensive than group lessons, on average.

Geographical Location

Where you are located in the world will have a major impact on the price of your golf lessons.

The general trend seems to be that the richer and the more populated the area you are located in is, the higher the price of your golf lesson will be.

For example, you will pay a much higher price for golf lessons in New York city than in Hell, Michigan.

In addition, even within one single town, getting a lesson in a richer neighbourhood will usually be more expensive than getting a lesson in a poorer neighbourhood.

Skill & Prestige of Instructor

There are different levels of golf instructors all over the world in terms of skill & prestige.

Ideally, you would be able to get a PGA certified golf instructor to teach you how to play golf. These golf instructors know what they are doing and talking about, and they truly can help you bring your game to the next level.

A PGA certified golf instructor will usually cost more per hour than a coach who is not certified.

Furthermore, golf instructors who are popular, famous, prestigious, or who are known to have coached PGA Tour professionals will fetch a much higher price than similarly-skilled instructors who are unknown.

If a golf instructor has a strong social media following, in the thousands or millions of followers, you can almost be certain that the price of a lesson will be expensive, maybe even astronomical.

Coaching Equipment Used

Another factor that can increase price of a golf lesson considerably is the type of coaching equipment the golf instructor will provide you during the lesson.

For example, if a golf instructor lets you use their state-of-the-art golf simulator, a launch monitor, or a slow-motion camera to film & analyze your technique, you can expect a much higher lesson price.

These pieces of equipment are very expensive, and the instructor needs to recoup their costs by charging more for the superior level of service they provide you with.

These pieces of equipment might enhance how much improvement you can get out of the lessons with the coach, so it might be worth paying the extra price.

Opulence of the Golf Facility Used

There are different levels of luxury offered in different golf facilities meant to serve the different financial levels of society.

Some golf facilities are made for the extra wealthy, with fees reaching the tens of thousands a year, while other facilities will only cost you one thousand dollars a year.

If you are taking lessons in one of the more luxurious golf facilities, then you can expect to pay a higher price than if you are taking a lesson in a run-down facility.

Bundle Discounts

Many golf instructors offer bundle discounts. This means that if you purchase multiple golf lessons at once, you will get a small discount and pay less than if you had bought individual lessons.

It is commonly offered to students to purchase 6 golf lessons at once for about a 2-10% discount.

1 hour of golf lessons can feel a lot too short to make substantial progress and to burn any technique improvements into your muscle memory. Therefore, it makes sense to buy golf lessons in bundle, so that the instructor can really hammer in better technique into you.

Are Golf Lessons Worth The Money?

Golf lessons can be worth the money in the right conditions. If you are a beginner, group or private lessons are worth the money. If you are more advanced, only private lessons are worth the money, assuming your instructor is qualified and dedicated to you during the lesson.

Golf lessons can be incredible investments of time and money if you value getting better at golf. A golf coach can instantly see the flaws in your technique from an outside perspective and correct your form. However, there are some caveats to those statements.

First of all, you need to get the right type of golf lesson for you. If you are a beginner, then a group lesson can work for you, as the instructor will give you general knowledge about golf techniques, and you are still getting used to the golf clubs.

However, if you have the basics of golf down, then the utility of group golf lessons decreases drastically. If you are an intermediate to advanced golf player, then private golf lessons are the way to go.

If you are getting group lessons, try to choose a group that has an average level similar to yours. This way, the instructor will be able to give you tips & tricks that will work well for you instead of more advanced tips for a stronger group than you.

Next, if your golf coach is not giving you their time, is looking at their phone, spending time away from you during your lesson, or exhibiting any other unprofessional behaviour, it may be time to change coaches.

You also want to ideally employ a PGA certified coach, or an instructor with a similar certification level. It is better to have a coach who knows what they are talking about than some confident looking person who does not actually know that much about golf. With a certification, you have that guarantee that your instructor is decent.

Golf lessons can seriously help you improve your driving, putting, long game, short game, chipping, and so much more, on condition that your coach is the right fit for you.

Conclusion

There you go! After reading this article, you have learned the average price of golf lessons as well as the factors that influence their price.

In addition, you have learned whether or not golf lessons are worth the money for you, depending on your golfing skill level.

Why do you feel like you need golf lessons? What are you looking to improve? Let us know in the comments down below!

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How to Become a Professional Golf Instructor?

golf coach whistle or golf instructor whistle
golf coach whistle or golf instructor whistle

So you are good at golf, but not that good. Not good enough to become a professional, and you are on the wrong side of your athletic prime. What can you do to still benefit financially from your golf knowledge and skill?

The answer is simple: become a golf instructor, also known as a golf coach.

How to Become a Golf Instructor or a Golf Coach?

How to become a professional golf instructor? To become a golf instructor, there is more than one path, and all paths lead to the Promised Land, provided you work hard and smart enough.

Look down below at some of the major steps you should probably consider if you want to know how to become a professional golf instructor.

Step 1: Obtain a Professional Level of Golf Knowledge

If you are going to teach others how to play golf, you obviously need to be an expert in all topics of golf. You will meet all kinds of players during your career: beginners, intermediate players, and maybe even advanced players.

To be able to help these players, you need to be better than them, or at least be capable of pointing out their mistakes that they cannot see. Therefore, you need to brush up on your golf knowledge until you know almost everything about golf! It will not be easy, but it is doable for sure.

One great way to ensure you get good golf knowledge is to study at a golf school. In golf school, you can learn from experts you wish to become like, making them great mentors, as well as good contacts you can call or message for advice.

If you go this route, try to foster relationships with your mentors; mentors are powerful weapons in anyone’s arsenal. There are universities out there that offer golf specific programs, including some verified by the PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association)

Another great way to learn as much as possible about golf is through reading our articles, reading books about golf, and watching tutorials and courses available online. The internet is truly a gold mine, if used correctly, and if you can sift through misinformation, and find the little gold nuggets scattered around.

There is almost no search query in the world that will not return results relevant to what you are searching for. The internet is powerful; use it wisely.

Step 2: Obtain a Professional Level of Golf Skill

At the same time that you are brushing up on your golf knowledge, you should also improve your golf skill until you are very comfortable. You should have internalized all the lessons you have read about within your own game if you are to teach others how to play golf.

Even when you finally reach the point of being skillful enough to teach others how to play golf, you will ideally want to keep staying active, and practicing golf every week at the least. You want to stay in good condition to maintain your skill and long-term health, as well as the perception students have of you.

To improve your own golf skill, you could employ the very person you want to become. Get a golf coach, and you can get better at golf, while directly observing potentially great examples of your future profession.

However, not all golf coaches are good. If you wish to be exposed to many examples of golf coaches, choose a different coach every time you hire one. Eventually, you will be able to pick up on who the best coaches are, why they are the best, and how you can incorporate their own good traits within yourself.

Furthermore, students want to learn from the best. If you are capable of winning some tournaments, no matter how big, you will greatly increase your credibility in the eyes of potential students. In addition, students will respect your word more, pay more attention, and sometimes, even be a little star-struck.

Step 3: Get a Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Certification

Although getting a golfer’s association certification is technically optional, in practice, it is a key that will open many doors in your golf instructor career.

In fact, if you are looking for a job, many employers require some kind of certification before considering to hire you. Furthermore, if you start your own coaching business, you will be taken more seriously if you have certifications to your name, and students will be more likely to sign up.

Some of the golf instructor certification programs you can join include the PGA, the Professional Golf Teachers Association of America, the United States Golf Teachers Federation. The PGA certification is the most prestigious golf certification out there, and having it makes you a professional golfer, just like Tiger Woods or Bryson DeChambeau.

Step 4: Find a job, or look for clients

If you are looking for a job as a golf instructor, you can look at job boards to see if there are any jobs available near you. In addition, you can contact your mentors and your golf teachers to see if they have any opportunities available.

Furthermore, if you used multiple golf coaches yourself, you can contact them for an internship, or if they have too many clients, they can send some to you in exchange for a percentage of the income generated.

If there are golfing facilities near you, such as a golf course, or a driving range, contact the management, or go up to the front desk to ask if you can work there. Make it obvious that you are qualified, and very motivated.

On the other hand, if you are trying to start your own golf instruction business, you should look for struggling players at driving ranges and similar areas, and offer a free lesson to start gaining clients. Once you have clients, you need to satisfy them incredibly well so that they keep coming to you, and send their friends and family your way.

Business is about keeping your customers and making them happy. If you keep your customers happy, you will not lose many, and they will do client prospecting (the process of finding new clients) for you, completely for free. Aim to serve your clients, and they will serve you.

Once you have so many clients that you cannot possibly respond to all the demand, it is time to hire other coaches, and to make sure they can offer your level of satisfaction to the customer.

Once you have excess clients, as well as one or more good coaches at your disposition, you can send the excess clients to your employed coaches, and take a percentage of the income your employee generated in exchange for providing them with a client they did not need to find themselves.

Once you find a formula that works, stick with it, and repeat. Keep adding new coaches to the business, while making absolutely sure that the clients remain as satisfied as possible. The bigger you grow your business, the more difficult it will be keep everyone satisfied.

The key to keeping satisfaction high is not by micromanaging your coaches, but by putting in place business systems coaches must follow to make customer satisfaction close to inevitable.

Step 5: Invest your money wisely

Whether you found a job as a golf instructor, or are self-employed, finding your own clients and charging however much you want, you need to invest your money wisely.

Job security is not necessarily assured, especially in the context of a Black Swan like the one in 2020, and starting your own business gives you variable income, which can feel risky.

For these reasons, you should not spend so much money that you are living paycheck to paycheck. Ideally, you would want to lower your expenses as much as possible so that you have money leftover to invest for your retirement.

Where to invest your leftover money? You should always keep 3 to 6 months worth of living expenses as cash in your bank account. Furthermore, depending on your level of risk, you can add an extra month or two’s worth in an emergency account.

Finally, after you have assured your survival in the short and medium term, a great place to invest is in an index fund, like the S&P500. An index fund is basically a collection of a set number of some of the biggest stocks (e.g. 500 stocks in the S&P500). An index fund is known to be a rather safe investment if you invest your money in the long term (10+ years).

If you plan to keep your money in the stock market for a long time, index funds can be a great choice to start saving for retirement, because they grow your investment by 10%, on average, year over year.

If you take your money out quickly from the index fund, you can experience a loss; this is why it is important to leave your money invested long term.

Once you reach retirement, your salary potentially drops to 0, and you will need money to pay your expenses. Assuming you have been investing in an index fund for 10, 20, 30 or maybe even 40 years, the money you invested will have grown very significantly.

If you invested enough as early on as possible, the money in the index fund will be enough to fund your entire retirement.

Disclaimer: nothing in this article is financial advice; you should do your own research.

Conclusion

There you go! You now know everything you need to know to become a golf instructor. If you need a reminder on certain golf notions, do not hesitate to use the search bar function on our website! Remember to invest your salary in a financially smart way, keeping a long-term perspective in mind!

We wish you a long, prosper golf coach career, that you understood how to become a professional golf instructor, and hope you foster many PGA champions in the future! We believe in you.

How long have you been playing golf? Let us know in the comments down below!